Jan

2009 Year In Review | The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Spy Phone Guy's 2009 Year In Review

FLASHBACK AND WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2010

Not sure how you felt, but 2009 went by real fast. Feels like just yesterday, I was celebrating the dawn of 2009. Lots of exciting stuff occurred in the spy phone industry last year. Spy phone vendors continued to release updates to their software, new features were added, new phone types were supported, and we even saw a new spy phone scam hit the market. Overall, it was a good year for the industry, and 2010 looks to be even better.

Before I get into my 2009 year end review, I’d like to give everyone a bit of insight into what changes will occur with this blog.

I initially created this blog to provide a place where spy phone news and reviews could be reported. I started to report on the spy phone industry in early 2006 via mostly on forums and a small Squidoo lens I set up. I decided that I wanted my own place to hang out and report on the spy phone industry, so that led me to launch this site. This was in December of 2008, and back then the spy phone industry was still under the radar, so there were not so many people looking for spy phone software. However, in the past year, the buzz has taken off and now it seems spy phone software has hit the mainstream press, so awareness has sky rocketed.

With more people looking for spy phone software, I realized last year that instead of reporting only on spy phone news, what people are really after is more information on how to purchase spy phone software, spy phone reviews, and just overall information on how the stuff works. I receive almost 100 emails a day now from people around the world, and the majority of these emails are asking for assistance, advice, etc. This means that what this site is lacking, is information to help people make the right purchase decision, and of course not get scammed in the process.

With that being said, what I plan to do this year is the following:

1) More “How To” information. You’ll start to see more posts that are focused on commonly asked questions I’m seeing in emails and forum posts. I’ll still of course report on new products, but I’ll definitely start to add in more “how to” information.

2) More frequent posts. I’m going to do my best to write a new blog post every Monday & Friday. Most likely, I’ll have posts mixed in during the week when specific news hits, but at least there will now be a set schedule on when new posts will occur.

3) You’ll start to see more Q & A categories. Right now, there is a single ‘Spy Phone Q & A’ section that you can access via the top header. This will still be a place where you can see all the Q & A posts, but I’ll now have additional categories that allow you to filter down to a specific phone type such as iPhone, BlackBerry, etc. In addition, I’ll have categories such as Installation Q & A, Set Up Q & A, etc.

4) More spy phone reviews. Another big improvement will be the addition of more reviews. I set up a site called Cell Spy Reviews a month ago where people can post their own experience using spy phone software. So far the feedback has been very positive, which means there is a demand for reviews on various spy phone products.

5) I’ll start to reply to more emails, forums posts, and comments. I currently dedicate 10 hours a week to emails and forum posts, but I’ve realized that I need to double this if I’m ever going to be able to get back to everyone.

Thank you for being a reader and for the trust you’ve placed in me as your resource for spy phone software news and information. Hope you have a great 2010.

SPG

2009 YEAR IN REVIEW: THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY

Lets get started!

THE GOOD!

Lots of good stuff happened last year. Here are a few of the top stories that kept the spy phone industry buzzing.

1) Flexispy Released PRO-X For iPhone & BlackBerry. Flexispy PRO-X is Flexispy’s top of the line spy phone software. What makes this version of Flexispy so unique, is the Call Intercept feature that is exclusive to Flexispy. Using Flexispy PRO-X, you can listen in on live calls as they occur. No more reading text messages & emails to figure out what is really going on. Using Flexispy PRO-X, you can listen in on live calls, so you’ll hear the actual conversations as they occur. This version was only available for Windows Mobile & Symbian cell phones, but Flexispy released support for BlackBerry & iPhone in the middle to end of last year.

2) Android Spy Software Hits The Market. Last year some of the most talked about cell phones were running on Google’s new Android OS. Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, My Touch 3G, & the Motorola Cliq. Mobile Spy beat everyone to the market with the world’s first spy phone software for Android based cell phones. Starting at only $49.97, Mobile Spy’s Android software offered all the must have spy phone features such as text message interception, viewing call logs (incoming & outgoing), and stealth GPS tracking. Their timing was fantastic, because their announcement came when Motorola was going nuts promoting their new Droid cell phone with a ‘Droid Does’ campaign. This gave me a great opportunity to add a bit of humor and create a ‘Droid Does Spying‘ post.

Releated Posts:

3) Spy Phone Software Becomes More Affordable. Flexispy introduced various pricing options for their iPhone spy software. This made it a lot more affordable versus their old pricing model. In the past they had a single price option of $149, $249, & $349. Towards the end of last year, they decided to reduce some of the functionality for their iPhone version and create a new one called Flexispy Basic, with a price tag of only $39 for a 3 month license. In addition, Mobile Spy introduced a BlackBerry version which brought down the price substantially for someone looking to purchase BlackBerry spy software. Flexispy’s BlackBerry version starts at $149, versus Mobile Spy’s 3 month license price of only $49.97. Great news for anyone on a budget looking for BlackBerry spy software. Perhaps in 2010 we’ll see Flexispy create a Basic version for the BlackBerry as they did for the iPhone.

Mobile Spy BlackBerry Spy Software Now Available

THE BAD!

Bluetooth Spy Software. E-Stealth, Big Daddy Spy, Phone Stealth, & Cell Spy Pro. These are just some of the companies selling bluetooth spy phone software. The sad thing is that despite repeated warnings by me and a lot of their customers, bluetooth spy software continues to sell in record numbers. I continue to get emails every single day from people absolutely pissed off that the software does not work. The sad thing is that a simple search on Google would uncover numerous complaints. Perhaps this is just one of those situations where people want to believe in something so much that despite all the warnings signs, they still proceed with it. The ads for bluetooth spy software try to tap into people’s desire to have features that traditional spy phone software does not have such as not having to access or install anything on the target phone. I have yet to come across a single email from someone who has said anything positive about these products. To top it off, the software being sold is available free on the internet because it was originally developed as a proof of concept to showcase the vulnerability of bluetooth devices, which has now been fixed.

Ultimate Bluetooth Mobile Phone Spy Scam $5,000 Challenge (scroll down and read some of the comments)

Additional Information:

THE UGLY

Spy Phone Scams. I was torn between putting bluetooth spy software in the ‘Ugly’ category, but decided to crown the ‘MMS Phone Interceptor‘ as the ultimate worst product of 2009. This scam must have hit a lot of people because anti virus company Symantec reported in their ‘August 2009 State Of Spam’ report that this spy phone scam has quickly become one of the top threats of 2009. The product is being marketed via email (spam) and other online / offline channels. The way it works is you send the company money for their spy phone product which requires no installation on a target phone (sound familiar??), only just your own cell phone. Once you install the software, it starts to collect YOUR data versus the target device that you intended to spy on. If you come across this product, stay far away from it.

Spy Phone Software Scam Alert – Watch Out!

Hope you enjoyed this 2009 Year End Review. Be sure to check out my next post where I’ll predict what we might see in 2010. I’ll post this on Friday, January 8.

Take care and Happy New Year.

SPG